Describe in great detail your favorite room, place, meal, day, or person. You can do this in paragraph form.

Now cut unnecessary words like articles and determiners (a, the, that) and anything that isn’t really necessary for content; leave mainly nouns, verbs, a few adjectives.

Cut the lines where you see fit and, VOILA! A poem!

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I wrote about a magical place. Here’s the version edited as per instructions:

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Through arch

through time

long-abandoned château

what were windows,

looking down

Rivière de Sorgue bubbles

twists

Musée de Petrarque stands stately

garden

poplars.

We walk

ancient path

limestone cliffs,

tiny secluded valley

the pool where

river is birthed

A hole I could hold in my hands.

Feel magic:

the poet still walks.

Fontaine de Vaucluse

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Here is this beautiful place, a site of a novel (theoretically in progress, though actually resting, like dough) from our visit in 2011. I dream of returning there to stay and work on this project when the trees are all leafed. The arch is behind the Musee, a modern-ish town is directly behind the limestone wall/cliff. I’m standing on the path to the fontaine (the river source). There is another photo from this walk on the cover of my poetry chapbook 2011.

Fontaine de VaucluseSorgue RiverChateau aboveMusee de Petrarque on right.

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Here is the first version (I couldn’t do it in a paragraph form, despite myself!) I think it could make a fine poem itself:

Through the arch and back through time

the long-abandoned château des Evêques de Cavaillon, XIV

rocks crumbling from what were windows, vacant eyes looking down to where

This tiny secluded valley, until we reach the pool where the river is birthed

from a hole I could hold in my hands.

You can feel the magic here; the poet still walks at

Fontaine de Vaucluse

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Which version do you prefer? The ‘brevity is an art’ version or the ‘extended version’?

I expect WordPress to link to a complete blog post about our visit to Fontaine de Vaucluse below (entitled Magic Fontaine); you may be interested in reading that post, as well.

Teacher moment: Do you know who Francesco Petrarch/Petrarque/Petrarca is? He was the father of humanism. He coined the term “The Dark Ages.” He traveled around Europe rescuing ancient Greek and Roman texts; at his death, he had the largest library in Christendom. He is called ‘the first tourist.’ He was a philosopher and scholar. Most of those things are forgotten. He is best remembered because he invented the sonnet form (specifically The Petrarchan aka Italian sonnet). For 50 years he wrote these 14 lined poems to/about Laure/Laura (deNoves) de Sade, a married woman who died, likely of bubonic plague, in 1348. He met her the first time April 6, 1327 in Avignon at Ste Claire Convent and his adoring sonnets in praise of her remain with us today. They are called Canzoniere. (Somewhere on this blog you’ll find one-#61- that I’ve translated from the Italian, likely also linked below). He was a man who knew he was making contributions to history. He expected to be remembered. I have a little crush on him, as in my Grace Awakening series, the musical young man, Ben, was Petrarch in a past life…)

I’m transcribing the text of Life of Petrarch by Susanna Dobson (1777). This day’s words offer a fascinating view of Petrarch’s hopeless devotion. He climbs Mt. Ventoux with his brother, has a profound spiritual awakening, and determines to avoid Laura and the distraction his affections for her have on his spiritual devotion. Laura, who has sedulously avoided him for nearly a decade, is alarmed at this change in his behaviour to her, and with a few words of attention, sucks him right back to her feet where he belongs. lol. I have to say, this section seemed rather familiar. Obviously, men and women have not changed much in six hundred years!

Here is the passage. In brackets are the page numbers in my original 1777 copy of this work. (sic) indicates a verbatim spelling from the original. I have switched ‘f’ to ‘s’ in words as required (to avoid lines like “he attempted the moft diftant expreffion”), but otherwise have kept all spelling,capitalization, and punctuation as it is in the original.

An imagined view of Petrarch and Laure, which looks to be set at Fontaine de Vaucluse.

THIS year, in 1336, at the end of April, Petrarch, always curious and eager to see new objects, took a journey to Mount Ventoux. This is one of the highest mountains in Europe, and having a few (104) hills near it so lofty as to intercept the prospect, it presents from its summit a more extensive view than can be seen from the Alps or the Pyrennees. Petrarch gives this account of his journey in a letter to father Dennis:

“HAVING passed my youth in the province of Venaisson, I have always desire to visit a mountain which is described from all parts, and which is so properly called the mountain of the winds. I sought a companion for this expedition; and, what will appear singular, among the number of friends that I had, I met with none quite suited to my mind: so true it is, that is is rare to find, even among persons who love one another the best, a perfect conformity in taste, inclination, and manner of thinking. One appeared to me too quick, another too slow; I found this man too lively, the other too dull; there is one, said I to myself, too tender and too (105) delicate to sustain the fatigue; there is another too fat and too heavy, he can never get up so high; in fine, this is too petulant and noisy, the other too silent and melancholy. All these defects, which friendship can support in a town and in a house, would be intolerable on a journey. I weighted this matter, and finding that those whose society would have pleased me, either had affairs which prevented them, or had not the same curiosity as myself, I would not put their complaisance to the proof. I determined to take with me my brother Gerard, whom you know. He was very glad to accompany me, and felt a sensible joy in supplying the place of a friend as well as a brother.”

“WE went from Avignon to Malaucene, which is at the foot of the mountain on the North side, where we slept the night, and reposed ourselves the whole of the next day. The day after, my (106) brother and myself, followed by two domestics, ascended the mountain with much trouble and fatigue, though the weather was mild and the day very fine. We had agility, strength, and courage; nothing was wanting; but this mass of rocks is of a steepness almost inaccessible. Towards the middle of the mountain we found an old shepherd, who did all he could to divert us from our project. It is about fifty years ago, said he, that I had the same humour with yourselves; I climbed to the top of the mountain, and what did I get by it?—My body and my cloaths (sic) torn to pieces by the briars, much fatigue and repentance, with a firm resolution never to go thither again. Since that time I have not heard it said that any one has been guilty of the same folly.”

“YOUNG people are not to be talked out of their schemes. The more the shepherd exaggerated the difficulties of (107) the enterprise, the stronger desire we felt to conquer them. When he saw that what he said had no effect, he shewed us a steep path along the rocks; that is the way you must go, said he.”

“AFTER leaving our cloaths and all that could embarrass us, we began to climb with inconceivable ardour. Our first efforts, which is not uncommon, were followed with extreme weakness: we found a rock, on which we rested some time: after which we resumed our march; but it was not with the same agility; mine slackened very much. While my brother followed a very steep path which appeared to lead to the top, I took another which was more upon the declivity. Where are you going? cried my brother with all his might; that is not the way, follow me. Let me alone, said I, I prefer the path that is the longest and the easiest. This was an excuse for my weakness. I wandered for some time at (108) the bottom; at last shame took hold of me, and I rejoined my brother, who was set down to wait for me. We marched one before another some time, but I became weary again, and sought an easier path; and at last overwhelmed with shame and fatigue, I stopped again to take breath. Then abandoning myself to reflection, I compared the state of my soul, which desires to gain heaven, but walks not in the way to it; to that of my body which had so much difficulty in attaining the top of Mount Ventoux, notwithstanding the curiosity which caused me to attempt it. These reflections inspired me with more strength and courage.”

“MOUNT VENTOUX is divided into several hills, which rise one above the other; on the top of the highest is a little plain, where we seated ourselves on our arrival.” (109)

“STRUCK with the clearness of the air, and the immense spaces I had before my eyes; I remained for some time motionless and astonished. At last waking from my reverie, my eyes were insensibly directed toward the fine country to which my inclination always drew me. I saw those mountains covered with snow, where the proud enemy of the Romans opened himself a passage with vinegar, if we may believe the voice of fame: thought they are at a great distance from MountVentoux, they seemed so near that one might touch them. I felt instantly a vehement desire to behold again this dear country, which I saw rather with the eyes of the soul than those of the body: some sighs escaped me which I could not prevent, and I reproached myself for a weakness I could have justified by many great examples.

“RETURNING to myself again, and examining more closely the state of my soul; (110) I said, It is near ten years, Petrarch, since thou hast quitted Bologna: what change in thy manners since that time! Not yet safe in port, I dare not view those tempests of the mind with which I feel myself continually agitated. The time will perhaps come, when I may be able to say with St. Augustine; if I retrace my past errors, those unhappy passions that overwhelmed me, it is not because they are still dear, it is because I will devote myself to none but thee my God. But I have yet much to do. I love, but it is a melancholy love. My state is desperate. It is that which Ovid paints so strongly in that well-known line;”

“I cannot hate, and I am forced to love!”

“IF, said I, thous shouldst live ten years longer, and in that time make as much progress in virtue; wouldst thou not be able to die with a more assured hope? Abandoned to these reflections, I (111) deplored the imperfection of my conduct, and the instability of all things human.”

“THE sun was now going to rest, and I perceived that it would soon be time for me to descend the mountain. I then turned towards the West, when I sought in vain that long chain of mountains which separatesFranceandSpain.”

“NOTHING that I knew of hid them from my sight, but nature has not given us organs capable of such extensive views. To the right I discovered the mountains of the Lyonnaise, and to the left the surges of the Mediterranean, which batheMarseilleson one side, on the other dash themselves in pieces against the rocky shore. I saw them very distinctly, though at the distance of several days journey.”

“THE Rhone glided under my eyes; the clouds were at my feet. Never was (112) there a more extensive variegated and inchanting (sic) prospect! What I saw rendered me less incredulous of the accounts of Olympus, and mount Athos, which they assert to be higher than the regions of the clouds from whence descend the showers of rain.”

“AFTER having satisfied my eyes for some time with those delightful objects which elevated my mind, and inspired it with pious reflections; I took the book of St.Augustin’s confessions which I had from you, and which I always carry about me. It is dear to me for its own value, and the hands from whence I received it, render it dearer still; on opening it I accidentally fell on this passage in the tenth book: “Men go far to observe the summits of mountains, the waters of the sea, the beginnings and the courses of rivers, the immensity of the ocean, but they neglect themselves.”

“I TAKE God and my brother to witness that what I say is true. I was struck with the singularity of an accident, the application of which it was so easy for me to make.”

“AFTER having shut the book, I recollected what happened to St. Augustin, and St. Anthony on the like occasion and believing I could not do better than imitate these great saints, I left off reading, and gave myself up to the croud (sic) of ideas which presented themselves, on the folly of mortals, who neglecting the most noble part, confuse themselves with vain objects, and go to seek that with difficulty abroad, which they might easily meet with at home. If, said I, I have undergone so much labour and fatigue, that my body may be nearer heaven; what ought I not to do and to suffer, that my soul may come there also?” (114)

“IN the midst of these contemplations I was got, without perceiving it, to the bottom of the hill, with the same safely, and less fatigue than I went up. A fine clear moon favoured our return. While they were preparing our supper, I shut myself up in a corner of the house to give you this account, and the reflections it produced in my mind. You see, my father, that I hide nothing from you. I wish I was always able to tell you not only what I do, but even what I thing. Pray to God that my thoughts, now alas! vain, and wandering, may be immoveably fixed on the only true and solid good.”

PETRARCH often retired into the most desart (sic) places; and if by accident he met with Laura in the streets ofAvignon, he avoided her, and passed swiftly to the other side. This affectation displeased her. Meeting with him one day, she looked at him with more kindness than usual. Perhaps she wished to preserve a lover (115) of such reputation; or could not be insensible to the constancy of his affection. A favour so unhoped for from Laura, restored Petrarch to happiness, and put an end to all his boasted resolution. When he passed a few days without seeing her, he felt an irresistible desire to see her in those places she frequented. She behaved to him with more ease; he wished to assure her of his love by the most tender expressions, or at least by his sighs and tears; but the dignity of Laura’s countenance and behaviour rendered him motionless: his senses were suspended, his tears dried up, and his words expired upon his lips. His eyes could alone express the feelings of his soul. In a sonnet he says:

“YOU could not without compassion behold the image of death stamped on my face; a kind regard, a word dictated by friendship has restored me to life. That I yet breathe is your precious gift. (116) Dispose of me, for you are the reviver of my soul; you alone, beautiful Laura, possess both the keys to my heart.”

THE Poets imagined their heart to have two doors, the one leading to pleasure, the other to pain. It is to this poetic fiction that Petrarch alludes.

LAURA wished to be beloved by Petrarch, but with such refinement that he should never speak of his love. Whenever he attempted the most distand expression of this kind, she treated him with excessive rigour; but when she saw him in despair, his countenance languishing, and his spirits drooping; she then reanimated him by some trifling kindness; a look, a gesture, or a word, was sufficient.

THIS mixture of severity and compassion, so strongly marked in the lines of Petrarch, is the key to a right judgment of Laura’s character. It was thus she (117) held for twenty years the affections of a man, the most ardent and impetous, without the smallest stain to her honour; and this was the method she though best adapted to the temper and disposition of Petrarch.

I’ve been spending the last few days transcribing my copy of Susanna Dobson’s Life of Petrarch (1777) and as I plug away on the typing I am musing on immortality.

The other day I alluded to and listed Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18,” and as I read it, I am thinking of the comparison between Will’s unknown inspiration, and Petrarch’s Laure. Here’s that sonnet again:

SONNET 18

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometime declines,

By chance, or nature’s changing course, untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st,

Nor shall death brag thou wand’rest in his shade,

When in eternal lines to Time thou grow’st.

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

The immortality happens in the closing couplet. So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee. “This” is, of course, Will’s poem. He claims that he has made his beloved immortal by describing her (or him) in this poem. The immortality has limited value, being as we have no idea of whom he was speaking, but the moment of loving adoration is captured for all time.

Petrarch is a little more specific. He names his love, and of course, the people of his time knew exactly who she was. He calls her Laure, and his poetry abounds with symbolism of the laurel. A crown of laurels was (and still is) a mark of distinction. Petrarch believes she is his crown and his success. History (particularly the Abbé de Sade in his Mémoires sur la vie de François Pétrarque, 1764) records her as Laure de Noves, wife of Hugues de Sade. (In English, we call her Laura).

Here is Petrarch’s Canzoniere 6 which shows a play on the laurel at the end:

Now so depraved is my poor fool, desire, To persecute this lady, turned in flight, Unloosed of Love’s entrapments, footing light, Ahead of my slow run he flies. Prior

To my objections, by the roads most dire, The more I call, the more he takes to flight; Restraint is weak, nor has the spur its bite When Love and nature in him do conspire.

And then he grasps the bridle to direct The way, and takes me for a vassal, hastes Post-haste, as though to death, my worsened state

To reach at last the laurel and collect The bitter fruit of others’ plagues, the tastes That grieve one more, unless they consolate.

(trans. “Hypocorism” on Yahoo Answers)

This poem is echoing the section that I’m transcribing at the moment. Laura is being stalked. Petrarch follows her about Avignon, gazing dreamily at her or trying to talk to her. She covers her face and takes off in the other direction. You can almost hear her running steps while Petrarch shouts rhyming verses extolling her beauty. It’s a wonder her hubby Hugues didn’t call him out and beat him to a pulp! (Now that’s an interesting scene, isn’t it? Hmm. Expect to see something along those lines).

The summary of this vague sort of comparison between Will and Francesco is that to truly be immortalized, the beloved needs a name, and a personality. Laure seems far more real than Will’s anonymous beloved. While Laure is busy running in the opposite direction, pulling her veil over her head, and trying to maintain her virtue against the onslaught of Petrarch’s devotion, Will’s beloved is a static object, simply receiving affection and adoration. There is no sense of individuality. Nonetheless, the love does become immortal because it is recorded. Words are powerful.

This image is popularly considered to be Laure de Noves de Sade, beloved of Petrarch, though the Musee Petrarque in Fontaine de Vaucluse asserts that there are NO verified pictures of her, most being painted years after her death.

I am beyond excited to be going to Surrey International Writers’ Conference next fall (in 133 days!). I attended SIWC in 2009 after I’d written Grace Awakening, and successfully pitched it there. I was a walk in registration on the Saturday that year. This year, I registered and paid on the first day I could for the full conference. As a result, I have appointments with agent Victoria Marini and with Diana Gabaldon! I’m so excited I can hardly stand it.

In the midst of my excitement, I’m feeling the pressure to be finishing up book 3, Grace Awakening Myth, and getting back to work on Grace Beguiling. Beguiling is the book I was in France to research in 2011, and it has already had some help from Diana Gabaldon, as she responded to some historical questions about Roman Catholic practice that I’d posted on the Compuserve Writers’ Forum. I was poking around the Forum today, looking for some interesting conversations and tips, and I came across links to this blog post that is the notes that L. S. Taylor took at SIWC in a masters’ class by agent Donald Maass in 2011. Maass handles some serious talent, and I’ve heard him speak before. This workshop is so full of fantastic stuff that I thought I’d direct you to the link. I’m going to be chewing on this for a while. Taylor records, “Fiction that keeps us enthralled works on three different levels at once: the macroplot, the scene structure, and the line-by-line tension. A throbbing beat that keeps us dancing/reading, enthralled.”

Poor Petrarch. In this sonnet he is wishing he could free himself from the obsession of his love, but he thinks that death would just put him into another war, from one grief to another. He begs Love, who has painted him with color, but doesn’t remember to come when he calls her. ..

Poor desperately obsessed Petrarch. Of course, even death was not an escape. He still suffered for another thirty years after Laure died. It wasn’t until the last decade of his life that his writings suggest he was released and could focus on worship of God and not his muse.

I played with a multi-colour pencil crayon and my calligraphy pens to transcribe this sonnet today. Here is the result:

Canzionere 36 da Petrarca

I think that when I take the time to set this up for a good copy, with copy lines and borders, it will be quite effective. I particularly like my Italian pseudonym Giovanna Uccello. 😉 it’s fun having an easily transliterated name… Jeanne Oiseau. I mean, Shawn Bird.

Like this:

Francesco Petrarca loved old texts. He travelled throughout Europe gathering the literature of ancient Greece and Rome. He’d hire copyists, or he’d copy them out himself. At his death, he had the largest library in Christendom.

There is a famous historical biography of Petrarca written by Abbé de Sade in the 18th century. It is quoted liberally in the exhibits at the Musée Petrarque at Fontaine de Vaucluse, so I asked the curator whether they had an English translation. They did not and she didn’t know whether there ever had been. However, by the time we got back to our apartment in Avignon, there was an email from her. She’d double checked with the museum’s librarian. There had been a translation made in 1776 in England by Susannah Dobson. I laughed at that. What were the chances I’d ever see a two hundred year old book?

The concept was absurd, but of course I looked on the internet, and shock of shocks there was a 2 volume set listed on eBay…

Now that same two volume set is sitting in my kitchen. Two beautiful books. Two leather bound books that came off the press in 1776.

1776.

That’s 235 years ago. Thats 133 years older than the city I live in.

I feel so remarkably awed to have these books in my possession. Petrarch collected ancient books, and I have collected ancient books about him.

I guess ideally I’d speak fluent Italian and Latin, and I’d be able to read all Petrarch’s own words whichever language he’d used, but unfortunately I can’t, so I have to rely on translations. Since I can’t find any copies of Abbé de Sade’s Memoires sur la Vie de François Pétrarque listed on the internet, Susannah Dobson’s translation will do for now.

PS. The provanance of the books is interesting as well. They have book plates in them:

Sir John Mordaunt was a rather famous military man in his time, and now his books are at my house. Wild. He lived in Walton Hall in Warwickshire (as you can see on his book plate). These books used to sit on the library shelves in Walton Hall. The house was rebuilt in the 19th century. Presumeably these books were in the Mordaunt library until the home was sold to become a girls’ school in the last century. Imagine. My books used to live in this house. Crazy, eh?

Oh- and there’s a Harry Potter connection as well, since in the 15th century Walton Hall was the home of the Lestrange family… 😉

Last year after my husband and I spent a couple of weeks touring Italy, people would ask us what place we enjoyed the most, and we were unable to answer. Venice was, well, Venice: beautiful, spectacular, sad, interesting. We’d go back to explore more of her rabbit warrens in an instant. Cinque Terre, the five Mediterranean Sea coast towns, were picturesque, delightful and soothing. Rome was amazing for a hundred different reasons, and special because my fourth Finnish host family joined us there. Pompeii answered a childhood wish. Geneva (okay- that was a side-trip to Switzerland) was lovely, organized, expensive, and fascinating. Each was so different that there was no way to choose between them. Each was completely special in its own way.

The Petrarch Museum in the white building on the right is believed to be on the site of Petrarch’s house.

This year I found myself talking about one place whenever anyone asked us about our trip to France. Sure, Nice was nice. Yes, Avignon was intriguing. Paris was bustling and full of things to see. The star of our visit was a small village that most people have never heard of.

Somewhere around 1310 Francesco Petrarca, his father and his brother made a visit to the source of the Sorgue River. It had been known for centuries as a miracle of nature. There was a hole at the bottom of a limestone cliff, a still pool, and then a raging river. Greeks and Romans had come to marvel at it in their time. Petrarca was a boy, but he declared that this was a place he wanted to live. Some twenty years later, he bought property and spent fifteen contented years off and on living in his house on the banks of the Sorgue, trying to forget Laure, writing, and tending his books and his gardens: one at his house and another by the still pool of the spring at Fontaine de Vaucluse.

There is a magic in this place. The incongruity of the stillness and the noise. The contrast of the white cliffs and greenery. The fortress on the top of the hill that was in ruins even in Petrarca’s time. The sound of the newly born river which seems to burrow into your head and erase all hurry. The meditative nature of the place.

I could never have described it from the photographs. This is one place that one has to visit to fully appreciate. I wish I’d had more time to just soak in the atmosphere of the place.

At the Petrarch Museum, located on the site of his house, I found a comment he’d made that in the past, people had come to Fontaine de Vaucluse to see the miracle of the spring, but in the future, they’d come because he had lived there. I pointed out to my husband the enormous conceit of a man to make such an assertion. He just smirked and said, “We’re here, aren’t we?”

And so we were. If Francesco Petrarca had not been writing about Fontaine de Vaucluse in the 14th century, I would never have known about it and I would never have sought the experience. I would never have found myself sitting by the river bank as the sound of the Sorgue carried me back seven centuries. He was pompous, but he was right. His words are entwined in the magic of the place.